Recommendations for Filling a Box to Practice Tying

[snagged in outlet 3]

15 minutes ago, Nick Adams said:

Sounds so luxurious. Not really a mink kind of a girl, but I'd be willing to give it a try. 

They are more.....Supple😁

[trythisonemv]

On 3/21/2022 at 9:09 AM, andrew141 said:

I have just recently been getting into fly fishing and fly tying.  I am wanting to practice more thread control, working with sparse materials, and tying smaller flies, so I am going to build out a box of midges and small nymphs.  Since I also want to fish with these (not just tie flies for the sake of tying flies - although I do that as well) I figure I should get some recommendations on which patterns, colors, and sizes I should tie.  I will probably do most of my trout fishing at Taneycomo and Roaring River.  Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

Scuds are great anywhere in Missouri also frenchie and prince nymph work great. Zebra midge in multiple colors. . . good luck 

[JimDog]

I am surprised that no one has suggested the Elk Hair Caddis.  Not too difficult a tie, and one of my all time favorite flies, both here in Missouri and out west.

[jdmidwest]

My favorite caddis is one with a CDC wing.  Brown hackle tail, natural rabbit dub, and a CDC wing.  Size 12 or 14 dry fly hook.  Brown thread.

[tjm]

I just leave the wings off most of my dry flies. so the EHC becomes a simple palmer fly, and  I don't have to shear an elk's foot.

[snagged in outlet 3]

I leave the peacock hurl off the top of a crackleback.  How does a trout see it if it's on top of the fly??  Never made any difference as far as I could tell.

[BilletHead]

56 minutes ago, snagged in outlet 3 said:

I leave the peacock hurl off the top of a crackleback.  How does a trout see it if it's top of the fly??  Never made any difference as far as I could tell.

           Sometimes we give the fish with a tiny brain too much credit for being smart. Onetime they will hit anything and another time they might be a bit selective.  Go to the trout park and watch one come up and eat a cigarette butt a filthy pig tossed into the water.  Pressured trout can be selective some. 

   I don't like litterbugs so hate me. 

[Nick Adams]

Nothing is more frustrating than watching a trout hot a strike indicator. They'll sniff the heck out of every dry in my box and strike, but slowly drift up and take a white palsa... ugh!

[tjm]

I knew a guy in RI that said he'd tied hundreds of Marlboro Butt flies and had never got it quite  right. We speculated that either the tobacco taste or the saliva was the final enticement

Sometime about 1980 I discovered the Variant dry flies as tied by Flick, these could not land upside down or in a capsized  position due to my over-large or unbalanced wings; and around the same time I read an essay on the benefits of tying nymphs "in the round", because the fish only ever sees one side of the fly as it tumbles in the current.  These two epiphanies along with the realization that Junglecock was totally unobtainable and impossible to imitate forever changed the way I approach fly tying, A Rangeley  streamer catches just as many fish without the JC and neither wets nor dries benefit much from wings. Now when I look at any new pattern, my eye is on what is unnecessary or can be left off,  and it is really unusual for me to tie a correct "pattern", rather I tie a resemblance to various patterns, size and silhouette being my main concerns.   

fwiw, though, a Crackleback without the herl is just a woolly worm.

[snagged in outlet 3]

45 minutes ago, tjm said:

fwiw, though, a Crackleback without the herl is just a woolly worm.

Oh I am aware of that....